Chapter 39: The Singing Willow

Our objectives were growing too numerous, and I could tell that Azwold was feeling the stress of trying to hold the threads together. But not only hold them; we were in a constant state of weaving the threads into some meaningful tapestry of singular insight. The further we traveled, the more I suspected there would be no unifying theory. Things were a mess. The Mage and I alone were ill-equipped to solve all the problems of Realms of Lore.

The only clue we had to go on for Quest: “Where’s Berem?” was word from an herb shop near the eastern gate of Soleus City. Medett had gleaned news from her network of kindred NPC associates; a Beast Ranger adorned in saurian bone gear was spotted two day/night cycles ago.

We clopped across the vast expanse of mesa hardpan on the back of a borrowed Mesa Riding Goat. They were shorter and sturdier than goats in the valley and Medett made use of them to deliver her [Tangybark] and newer, more effective [Berrybark Potion]s. Having few objectives in the city aside from the balloon yard, we planned to enter via the eastern gate to see if we could pick up Berem’s trail. If only we had Berem’s ranger skills to help track him down. I was undecided on the level of irony at play.

I gazed up at the guard stations on either side of the gate. I might have called them “towers” but they were more like room-sized orbs of glass suspended fifty feet up in the air on pillars of up-drafting wind. From afar, I had counted two guards in each orb, but as we approached, the glass turned opaque; a defense mechanism, I assumed.

Huge hubs like Soleus City were not my preferred travel destination, and a mild case of agoraphobia crept into me. The multitudes of NPCs and players milling about marred the city’s beauty. If they magically disappeared, of course, that would be fine.

“Did you mark the time when the others logged off?” I asked.

“They should’ve been back by now,” he said.

“Does that not worry you?”

“Oh, it does, but we’re here and they aren’t. Gotta keep moving.”

“I need an entourage of allies, forming a solid circle around me as we enter, preferably.”

“Listen Eld, just stay right by me and don’t act weird. If the baddies wanted to find us, they’d have no trouble. They know where we are and where we’re going… I bet they’ve predicted places we’ll go that we don’t even know yet.”

“You have a way of putting people at ease,” I said.

“What I mean is,” he said, dismounting our riding goat, “once we’re inside the walls of a major city, Telemoon can’t do much.”

“That you know of.”

“Nah, these places are impenetrable sanctuaries,” he assured me. “I’m thinking that’s why they gave up our trail. They know they can’t attack us in Soleus City.”

Something shiny whizzed by in the corner of my peripheral vision. I was uncertain, after peering around, that I had in fact seen anything. Up on the sun-bleached mesa, tricks of the light were common. Even more so once inside bustling city walls, I imagined.

But it could have been a faerie.

“In that case,” I said, “why are we still outside? Make haste. Did you see anything just then?”

“Such as?”

“A faerie?”

“You’re not doing your faerie stories any favors with questions like that. C’mon.”

Our Spirit Mage coats billowed and loose objects on our persons set to flapping against the magical blowing of the air pillars flanking us. Between the pillars, we passed below a sign made only of flowing air glyphs. It read: “We are the light. We are the dust. We are the wind.”

Azwold unsummoned our mount, and its parting bleat disappeared on the breeze. Afraid my question would steal away on the wind, too, I shouted; “Do we know the name of the Herbalism Shop?”

The Mage waited for the wind wall to pass behind, already consulting his tablet. “The Singing Willow. Should be in a nearby pavilion, down that walkway.”

Before us were three wide walkways: one straight ahead, one to the left, and one to the right. Adjoined by narrower walkways all along, some paved in flagstone or cobbles, some with a silvery-grey gravel that was still somehow flat and smooth, sprinkled throughout with a golden glitter.

The buildings were astounding; equal to anything else in the Realm. I raised my gaze to meet their imposing heights. Spires of ultra-strong sandstone and glass used the mesa’s powerful gusts as a constant architectural guide. The taller buildings—spindly cloud-reaching structures—had elaborate rope and wire systems built to either shift with the weather or bend it with aerodynamic curvature. Many structures intertwined with their neighbors, reinforcing or complementing construction styles.

The mathematical and architectural genius required to erect such complex cityscapes might only be possible because adhering to regular universal laws was not a given. Living in a realm where human imagination and in-game mechanics were the only construction limits had upsides; literally for Soleus City.

But Realms of Lore and the technology that gave it life… did those not exist within universal laws? Where was the line between real and not? Vick5 once told me that the building blocks of the outside material world—atoms—were ninety-nine point nine percent empty space. He had caveats about quantum something or others and electron clouds, but really, what separated true physicality from my own condition?

Sourly, I realized that similar lines of thinking drove Telemoon’s ambitions. If only brilliance and benevolence were a guaranteed pair.

We passed a small group of players chatting animatedly. They paid us the shortest of heeds. Perhaps I had thought of big cities in the wrong way. Maybe moving among tons of players lent a level of anonymity that I had not expected. The average player could not care less about a random Spirit Mage and his minion walking along, minding their own business.

A wave of sonder shivered through my bones.

And then the faerie whizzed past me again, zooming between players and roaming merchant carts, but drawing no attention aside from mine.

“Did you see it that time?” I whispered to the Mage, who was glancing from his tablet map to our surroundings, attempting to orient us.

“See what?”

“Another faerie,” I said.

He curled his nose, ignoring me to keep looking for the shop.

“Ah, here we go,” he said as the walkway opened up into a wide, circular plaza. Shops were set into a crescent wall of dense, silvery glass. Thin, papery trees like at Camp Starshot cast a sporadic shade over bronze benches, arrayed to look toward the center of the plaza. Something like the head of a giant dandelion puff levitated thirty feet above the plaza’s mid-zone on a magical dust cloud. Finger-like strands dangled down with the weight of unlit lightbulbs. Our daytime rush meant I would not get to see them lit. Fleeting little disappointments seemed to add up to bigger ones.

Azwold pointed to a shop which had a different kind of tree out front. A dangly-branched willow with leaves that tinkled in the breeze like a wind chime. Random, yet dulcet notes, soft and light, whistled among wind-rustled leaves.

“I’m not sure how we’re supposed to question an NPC shopkeep,” said Azwold, “but if Medett got info from here, I’m hoping we can too.”

“We have little else to go on,” I agreed.

Azwold made several minor adjustments to his NPC scanner’s parameters.

When the fae creature swooped down from the Singing Willow’s namesake tree, the Mage missed it again. But I saw it fly straight into the space between words on the door sign. Through it. The wood, banded and gilded in ultra-thin bronze, rippled like jelly.

I pointed at it, elbowing Azwold.

He looked up from his gadget, adjusting. “Yes, that is the name of the place. You’re a quick one, Eld.”

“Do you not see the ripples?”

He frowned, then opened the door and went inside.

I followed.

The shop was empty save for the solitary shopkeep. As Azwold scanned for anomalies, he held up a hand.

“Something strange about this one,” he said. “I’m getting a different reading than I’m used to.”

The shopkeep was an old woman with long silver hair bound into a ponytail. It lay atop a glass counter in front of her. Inside the counter were potions of every shape and color of the rainbow.

“Wel-wel-co,” she said in a warm warble.

“Something’s affecting her,” said Azwold, “but I don’t think it’s Telemoon.”

“It is the faerie,” I said, moving across the floor’s smooth tiles; a spiral of tiny silver and gold squares.

His silence at this confirmed his continued skepticism, but I did not care. I approached the NPC and put my ear near her face.

“Tell me what you must,” I said.

“Welcom-m-mmm-wel,” it sputtered out.

“Back up, Eld,” said Azwold. “We don’t know what’s going on here.”

“Don’t,” Breza Willow whispered almost inaudibly.

I leaned in closer.

“Don-on-on’t,” her voice, already wizened, was difficult to decipher though the glitchiness of trying to speak through an NPC.

“Don’t co-co-col-collect…” but the communication halted abruptly as the door bell jangled. A new customer entered.

I watched static electricity build up around Breza Willow’s head, flyaway strands of hair frizzling. Tiny sparks of electricity zipped through the strands, coalescing as a little ball of light. It promptly bolted away and through the wall. Shelves of dried herbs in jars wiggled as if painted on a two-dimensional screen.

I looked to Azwold, but he was staring at me, waiting for something to happen. He looked to the newcomer, an Air Archer looking to replenish his supply of empty potion bottles.

Then Azwold looked back to his NPC scanning device. “Strange,” he said. And I knew he was seeing an ordinary reading now. The anomaly had gone next door.

“We need to head next door,” I reported quietly to him.

The Air Archer glanced at us. “You in line?”

“Huh? Oh, um, no, you go ahead,” said Azwold.

“Welcome,” said Breza Willow. “Need herbs or potions? You’ve come to the right shop. Let Breza help you.”

The Air Archer was glancing at his cloud-themed tablet, perusing the store’s menu. “Yeah, lemme get...”

We left him to his business and went outside, the tinkling of the door’s bell blending with the willow’s chime leaf tones.

“Okay, so what exactly happened there?” said Azwold.

“Is the faerie invisible to you?” I asked.

“Must be,” he said. “All I saw was the old lady NPC behaving as if bugged.”

“I must visit the Fortune Teller,” I said, making for an elaborately carved door.

“They can’t tell real fortunes, you know,” said Azwold. “Their only function is to give you hints on what to do next. Kinda like Belvans, to help newer players find their way.”

So far, the faerie had only successfully communicated: “Terrible mistake,” and “Don’t collect.”

“I could use a hint,” I said. “We all could.”

“Well, do we have time and gold to waste?”

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“No,” I said, “we do not.”

I turned the filigreed bronze handle of the Fortune Teller’s shop and entered.